Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Legal Issue Settled?

In a blog post by Mydesert.com, Maureen Gilmer re-assures her readers that "pinning pictures is not copyright infringement." Now we know?

No, pinning pictures is not copyright infringement, but the jury is still out about whether or not it’s a threat to artists and photographers. Many are using watermarks on their pictures to emphasize it’s copyrighted within the Pinterest system.

Ironically, the author's images on the blog have buttons labelled "PURCHASE IMAGE" with a shopping cart icon. I am not kidding. You can't make this stuff up. I repeat: she is trying to sell rights to the images she posted on the blog! Not only that, but she claims with obvious pride that the images are pinned all over Pinterest already!

Who will purchase her images, when, as indicated in the images' caption, they are pinned all over Pinterest? I can just hotlink them from Pinterest with the EMBED code, then Maureen can sue to original pinner, and not me. Besides, it's not copyright infringement, right?

How can she say that "the jury is still out about whether or not it’s a threat to artists and photographers" when she should have the perfect vantage point to know that it is a threat to her selling rights to her photos?

I hate to be mean, but that was one of the most ignorant things I've ever read.

7 comments:

This is insane! How can she presume to sell photographs she didn't take or own the rights to??!! This woman's appalling lack of knowledge is going to cause trouble for her, once the actual photographers discover she's trying to profit from their work!

She's an idiot, plain and simple. How's about we steal her writing? Oh yeah, that would be infringement. I get SO pissed off at these people who think it's okay for them to do it to others, but don't you dare take anything of theirs. Classic "do as i say, not as i do"

I shared your blog's link on Facebook and FB seems to want to tell viewers it's unsafe/spam. Thankfully, most of the people who saw it, know better already and read your blog. Thanks for your work on this issue, it's important.

I Just did some 'snooping' and mydesert.com, the site to which this person has added her article, is, essentially, a spam site. If you find the "add your own picture or video" link, click on it, and read the Terms of Service for submitting an image, the terms are essentially the identical ones to all image gathering sites, i.e., Pinterest. It looks like a 'local online newspaper', but the more you look, the more it looks spammy, which is maybe why this article is getting the 'spam' notice when we link back from FB.

Have you seen this latest outrage about "orphanworks" and copyright in the UK? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/29/err_act_landgrab/ Photographers incensed and outraged; no doubt if bill becomes law, it will be challenged in court.